HMV – Kpop makes it to the ground floor!

Korean Class MASSIVE dropped by Oxford Street’s HMV today to have a quick chat with Paul, the manager who’s championed the addition of Kpop at the store. Before we talked with Paul, we had a little look round the Kpop section, to see how it was doing. It seems that the new year’s been treating London HMV’s Kpop section well, as it’s now got a golden spot on the ground floor!

Whatever you do when you go onto HMV next time, don’t walk past it!! There’s still Kpop on the lower floor, but this beautiful display should be loved and admired. And just so there’s no way you can walk past it, here’s a handy video to show you exactly where to go.

You’ll also notice there are some new additions in the mix.

Fierce BEG make an appearance!

Beast is the B2st

More DBSK, but just their Japanese albums

So what did we find out today about the Kpop section at HMV? Initially seen as a niche market, it was decided to experiment with the idea of supplying Kpop at this one store to see how it would sell. £5000 was spent on the first order by HMV, and was sold out within the week. Pretty impressive? We think so. Since there was obviously a market for Kpop in London, HMV have continued to stock Kpop, and currently, HMV have spent £10,000 of the stock they have in now.

Since it takes four weeks to ship in new CDs to sell, it takes a long time to get new stock in once it’s sold out. It’s also for hard for HMV to find the CDs to get. For example, HMV have been unable to get a hold of Big Bang’s back catalogue as it’s not available easily, so will only have a bigger supply of Big Bang once they release their much anticipated new album. The two Big Bang CDs they did manage to get a hold of obviously sold out ridiculously quickly, so VIPs need to hang in there. We did spot GD’s Heart Breaker currently in stock, so there is something for Big Bang fans at the moment.

GD’s Heart Breaker

Would it surprise you to know that 2NE1 is the biggest seller currently? This coupled with that fact that so many people want Big Bang stocked shows that YG’s popularity is pretty big in the UK at the moment. Overall in sales, it seems as though the boys have been outselling the girls, with boy groups being more popular. No shocking news there!

There’s good news for the future for Kpop at HMV. Hopefully HMV will be able to successfully make a deal with Universal Korea, which will mean quicker shipping times and cheaper prices in store. This would also mean that official merchandise may be able to be stocked, such as posters! However, since adding Kpop to HMV needs to be viable in business terms, it’s important that people go to the shop to buy CDs now. Buying online doesn’t help to show that Kpop can be supported long term like buying in store does. Show your support by buying in store now, and this will benefit Kpop at HMV in the future. Especially now that Kpop has a prime location on the ground floor (a big coo being among the rock and indie sections, a first for this genre of music!), it’s important that sales are good so that Kpop can be seen as a good stock to have in. If it continues to do well, other HMV shops may start to stock Kpop also. So please, pay a visit to HMV in Oxford Street and have a look at the selection they have.

HMV are also seeing about possible fan meets and personal appearances, so let’s all support the first HMV to have Kpop, and show everyone that Kpop is here to stay in the UK!

Big thanks to Paul for stopping to chat with us, it’s much appreciated.

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